I am still figuring out how in the Sam Hill you post on the various respective parts of this blog. But I want this to end up on the "nuggets of wisdom" page. I know Jeanne mentioned it already, but seriously "LOOK IN FRONT OF YOU."
Seriously. If you just do that, consistently, you will be fine. I had to learn that the hard way.
I put myself on a bus in Heidelberg earlier this year, on my merry way to some castle gardens (or something similarly fantastical and exclusively European), but the trip involved transferring buses. Simple, right? Done it a million times in the states. No problem. Sure thing.
You could have watered a houseplant with my sweaty palms at that first bus stop. Which is a red flag right away. I'm so afraid of getting lost, I might just get so worked up I'll loose myself.
Oh, and did I mention I'm not 12? I'm 21. Let's keep that in mind as I share this journey with you...
So, I get on the first bus. Alles Gute. Then, comes the transfer.
I get off the bus and, I, as Miss Responsible-I'm Never Late-Have to Make Everything Look Easy, begin frantically looking around for the next bus stop. Before me, there is a roaring, half-tram rail, half-street, 20 way intersection (as only a European city plan can produce) which appears to be designed as hell for those who don't like to transfer buses. There must have been at least ten poles with bus numbers on them. So, as the afternoon is already getting late and I have a garden to while away in, I start hunting for my number. I cross one street. I cross another. I meticulously stare down every pole and ignore people who I'm sure are staring at me as I cross the same street once...then back the other way...then back again. My number isn't here. This is some kind of cruel joke. Jeanne gave me the wrong itinerary. I begin crafting a speech of my victimhood to share with her later, hopefully over some of her incredible homemade hummus that she'll make out of guilt. It's been about 20 minutes now. I still can't find the goddam stop. I'm sure my bus (wherever the hell it is) is gone. Dejected, pissed, and embarrassed, I go back to my original bus stop to take it back to Jeanne's. No castle gardens, no peacocks, no boys in white peasant shirts reading poetry by the fountain. I mean, surely, this isn't my fault. This is the wrong bus hub. I couldn't not find my number, my number just isn't here.
But, lo, what is this?
I glance up at my original bus stop.
I check the numbers of the buses that stop there, once, twice.
I didn't have to cross a labyrinth of streets. My bus stop...the one I was looking so frantically for...the one I crossed through transfer hell for...was
RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.
